Blue and Bloody: A LSoH DW Crossover
by MagicalAwesomeness
Summary: When the Doctor and the newlywed Ponds crashland in urban Skid Row, they find themselves thrust into a rivalry between an aspiring florist and a sadist dentist, as well as a mystery of citizens disappearing. With the help of Seymour and Audrey, the three time-travelers discover just what kind of horrors are taking place in that little florist's shop on the corner.
1. Chapter 1

"What the hell is that?" Orin Scrivello asked his girlfriend as he gazed at an object in the sky.

Of course, the question was a rhetorical one; Orin would never ask his girlfriend anything. A piece of trash, that Audrey was. She couldn't even tell a drill from a file. She wouldn't survive a day in the dental profession. He was really only dating her because of her body - surely that would attract someone that he actually was interested in.

But Orin wasn't focusing on any of that right now. Right now, Orin was staring at a box in the sky. First, a total eclipse, and now this... thing? Orin reached into his black leather jacket and pulled out his handheld container of nitrous oxide. He needed a laugh just about now. As the gas filled his nose, he let out a deep, throaty chuckle. It wasn't a big laugh, but it was enough to get Audrey's attention.

"What did you say?" she asked him, taking her focus off a popped seam in her black-and-white dress.

"'What did you say', _what?_" he said, suddenly feeling frustrated with her. Why couldn't people ever address him properly?

"Doctor!" she squeaked, moving her hands to her face in a defensive position. "What did you say, _Doctor!_"

"Good." With that taken care of, Orin turned his gaze back to the sky - especially that box, getting bigger and bigger. As it got closer, he could see that it was blue and looked like the telephone boxes they talked about uptown. But the outside was made of wood rather than glass, and nobody used phone boxes anymore. It was 1982, for Christ's sake! There was also the fact that it was in the air, but Orin disregarded that when he realized that soon enough, it would hit the ground.

He wasn't the only one who had noticed the flying phone box; citizens from all over Skid Row were looking out their windows and standing on their stoops so they could see what was in the sky. As they began to see what would happen when the box hit the ground, panic began to ensue in the small town. People had dropped what they were doing, and some were screaming about the apocalypse.

The box was heading for Shmendrik's market just a few blocks down. That, Orin could see. But he didn't rush to evacuate people from the area. They probably figured it out already - in fact, there probably anyone wasn't in there anymore.

"Should we help them, Doctor?" Audrey asked him, making sure to add the word 'Doctor' at the end.

They didn't need help. He wanted to be the one to cause them pain. He loved that pain; he craved it. Instinctually, he turned his beatings to the nearest person to him. He clenched a fist and punched Audrey in the face. "Shut up, you ditzy cow!" he yelled as an addition. He could see her face turn red where he hit it, and it turned him on.

As Audrey's face stung, she backed away from her boyfriend. The box in the sky neared the small market, and in a flash, everything happened at once. The box hit Shmendrik's, a wave of energy rocked the ground, and in her daze, Audrey fell into the arms of another man.

Orin stumbled as the earthquake rumbled under his feet, but regained his balance quickly. "What was that?" he asked himself under his breath, starting to pace towards the disaster which had struck only moments earlier. Then, he stopped to bring his girlfriend along, and was panic-stricken when he saw Audrey in the arms of none other than Seymour Krelborne.

It was an accident that Seymour had caught Audrey in the first place. He was on his way to pick up a new kind of plant food for his new Audrey II, and had just happened to be outside by Orin and Audrey when the earthquake hit. Seymour didn't mind catching her; in fact, he had had a crush on her for years. But when he saw that she was with her sadist boyfriend, he knew to back off. Unfortunately, it was too late for Seymour to pull an innocent act, because as soon as Orin saw him, the kid was dead meat.

"You trying to steal my girl, Krelborne?" Orin asked, advancing on Seymour and pushing him away from Audrey. "There'll be worse than a root canal for you."

Seymour cringed away from the dangerous dentist, trying to stand up for himself but failing miserably. "N-no, Scrivello," he murmured, clutching the 5-dollar bill in his hand tightly. "Not stealing her, S-Scrivello."

"That's what I thought," Orin said, grabbing Audrey's arm and spitting on Seymour.

Audrey, trying to take a neutral position, pointed to the blue box which crashed just in front of Shmendrik's. "What do you think that is, honey? Let's go see." Even though she hated being with her so-called boyfriend, she would like it even less to see him and Seymour fight. So she dragged Orin to the market where the strange box had landed.

The box was weird, that was for sure. It had landed upright, and it looked like not a scratch was made on it. Smoke was billowing out of every crack, and it seemed like the thing was from a different place, a whole different world. Half the town had come just to see what it was, and maybe even what was inside.

"Honey?" Audrey asked Orin, who gave a big grin. "What do you think's in there?"

Orin adjusted his steel-toed boots and positioned himself in a fighting stance. "Well, why don't we find out?" With that, Orin kicked the doors to the box, which swung open with ease.

At first, all that could be seen was pillars of smoke. Some of the residents had to back up just to breathe, but not Orin. He had taken in much more harmful gases in his studies; this wasn't bad in comparison to some of the other things he breathed.

But then, as the smoke began to clear, the inside became visible, and it almost looked like it was bigger on the inside-

"Out! Out!" a voice called from inside, and three people ran out of the blue phone box. First, a man with short blond hair and blue eyes; next, a redhead wearing clothes that showed off her curves; and finally, a man with dark brown hair and a dark blue bowtie. As the three dashed out of the box, the one wearing the bowtie shut the doors, and the three turned around to see crowds of people staring at them.

"Um, Doctor?" the blond-haired one said to the bowtie-wearing one. "Why are there people on the seventh moon of Digiramus?" He had a British accent. Audrey had never heard one before, but liked the sound of it.

"Doctor?!" Orin jumped down into the crater to face the bowtie-wearing person. "I'm the only doctor around here. Orin Scrivello, DDS." He held out his hand, and as the man began to shake it, Orin pulled it behind him into a half-nelson. "What was that, some kind of magic trick or something?" he asked the man quietly.

The man with the bowtie stuttered for a minute, but then cleared his throat and began to clap. "Yes, you got us! That's for sure." He nodded to the other two strangers, who also began to clap. "I'm sorry if we frightened you. I'm... John Smith. This is Amy and Rory Pond. We're traveling magicians, and oh boy, did you get us!"

"Where you from?" a woman piped up from the back of the crowd. "Doesn't sound like you're from here."

John nodded towards the woman, and grinned, straightening his bowtie. "We're from Britain, in the London area." Then he looked at the different people who stood around them. "And obviously, you aren't. Where are we, exactly?"

"He doesn't know," a man murmured from somewhere in the group. Another asked how much time he spent at the bar. But Audrey had decided that she would help these people in any way she could. They were just confused and out of their realm. "You're in Skid Row," she said to them, motioning to the various shops which sat around the market. "You're downtown now."

"Skid Row... Skid Row..." John said to himself, and ran back into the blue box.

The other two strangers, Amy and Rory, seemed uncomfortable around all the new people. "So," the female one asked. "What's been going on lately here?"

"An eclipse, haven't you heard about it?" Audrey answered immediately, staring at the two of them. "There was a total eclipse of the sun just a couple of weeks ago." She wanted to mention the strange plant that Seymour had found, but she decided not to tell them, just in case the plant didn't turn out.

"A total eclipse of the sun, you say?" John shouted from inside the box. "Interesting."

The other man scratched his head, obviously at a loss for words. "Has anything else interesting happened?"

"Nothin' happens in Skid Row," Orin said, flipping his long, brown, fluoride-scented hair. "How dumb are you guys?"

The man, Rory, was about to respond when John burst out of the blue box and shouted, "America! We're in America, right? Northeast, somewhere around New Jersey, yep?"

Nobody answered him for what felt like a long time. "How're we supposed to know?" one man murmured. "That's uptown stuff."

"And, how far is it to uptown?" John asked, adjusting his bowtie once again. "Just wondering."

"More than half an hour," Audrey replied, trying to hide the smile on her face from helping these people. "I could help you find where you need to go. A nice hotel, a place to stay. It looks cramped inside that thing." She pointed to the box, and John beamed at her hospitality. Orin, however, did not, and was glaring angrily at her for trying to help these total strangers.

"Actually, that won't be nece-" Amy began to say before John cut her off. "That'd be great, thanks," he said, closing the doors to the box and locking them with a small silver key. "We'd love a place to stay. Uptown, then?"

"Sure," Audrey said, and began to help them out of the crater. Orin stood frozen, meanwhile, watching his girlfriend help three dentally-unhygenic strangers to a hotel uptown. He wouldn't dare to admit it, but he felt jealous that he was being left behind in the dust. Literally.

"You guys sure have strange clothes," Audrey said as the four of them walked up 10th Street. "Where'd you say you were from again?"

"London," Amy said, shrugging.

"England?" Audrey exclaimed, tugging at her dress. "So you flew here on an airplane?"

"Um..." Amy looked back towards the box, which people were now starting to examine. "Sort of."

"How is it to ride in an airplane? Are there really little bags of peanuts?"

"You mean you've never ridden in an airplane before?" Rory asked Audrey, who blushed.

"I've never been much of anywhere outside of Skid Row. I work at that little flower shop over there," she said, pointing to a florist's they were passing by. The sign in the window read 'Mushnik's Skid Row Florist', and sitting on the windowsill was the strangest of plants. Audrey herself had seen it before; she was the first one Seymour told about how he came to own it. It was quite a peculiar story, involving an old Chinese man and the big eclipse that was cast over everything. She didn't remember the whole story, just that the plant had become Seymour's and he was proud of it - if it would ever grow.

"What's that?" Rory asked, pointing at the little bud in a coffee grounds can.

"I-It's a plant," Audrey replied. "My coworker, Seymour, bought it a week ago. It's an Audrey II."

Rory shrugged it off, and retreated back to the other two. Amy placed her hand on her hip and blew a few strands of red hair out of her face. "I've never heard of one of those before."

"It's a new species or somethin'. Seymour couldn't find it in any of the books." Audrey cuddled her small leather purse as a chilled fall breeze whipped down the street. "We put it there to bring in customers, but you know..."

John, in the meantime, kept glancing back towards the mess at Shmendrik's. "Is there a way that we could sleep in a closer place? A hotel or something around here, by chance?" he asked. It didn't seem like he cared much about the plant, because he kept looking back to the commotion. Back and forth, back and forth.

"Well, there's Smitty's old place," she said, pointing to an old, rundown motel down the street. "Are you sure you don't want anything fancier, though? I've heard that street magicians make a lot of money."

"No, we'll do fine here. Thanks," John said, grabbing the arms of Amy and Rory and pulling them towards the motel. They were a funny group, the three of them. Odd, but funny. A break from the everyday.

And Audrey, standing in the middle of 10th Street in the dusk, decided that she liked them.

* * *

**A/N**

**Well, will this get any views? That's the question of the day, I guess. Most Whovians aren't familiar with Little Shop of Horrors, and most fans of LSoH aren't Whovians. So keeping this current and popular will most definitely be hard. But you know what'll make it easier? Your support! Yes, you, reader who stares here on your computer or phone screen. Your favorites and follows will let me know that you guys care, so if someone in this small crossover could follow or favorite this story or me as an author, I promise to not feed you to Audrey II. Wait. Spoilers. Anyway, thanks in advance for the support, and I hope to see you in the next A/N!  
-Cat**


	2. Chapter 2

The Doctor flopped down on the dusty twin-size bed and sighed. "It's not that bad," he said to Amy and Rory, who were staring at him from the doorway.

"Why didn't we just stay in the TARDIS?" Rory asked, gazing at the alien that sat on the squeaky mat.

"Needed time to repair herself," the Doctor replied. "She'll need a week to get back to normal, minimum."

"A week?!" Amy exclaimed. "We can't survive a week here. Why didn't we get a room uptown? At least it sounded better than this place."

But the Doctor wasn't listening to them anymore. He was thinking about what happened to his TARDIS. "I'm going out," he said, standing up and heading for the door. "I need to make sure the TARDIS is phasing normally. You know, that nothing's gone wrong. Come on, Ponds, help me out here."

Amy and Rory had been married less than twelve hours ago, and now they had to spend their honeymoon in a dump. With the Doctor. Great. "Why are we here, anyway?" Amy raised her eyebrow in that way that she always did. "Why aren't we off seeing the twelve planets of the Kronora alignment or something?"

"First of all, it's _Krinera_," the Doctor stated. "And second, it seems like there's a sort of a rift here; like a magnet pulling us in. That's what happened to the TARDIS; it got pulled in and was damaged in the process. But why here? Why now?" He looked up at his two companions and sighed. "I can't just sit still for a week. I need to find out what's going on. So you two can stay here in this dingy, decaying dump for a week or you can come with me."

The Ponds were getting more than a little bit angry now. They just wanted a break, and with the Doctor, it was nonstop running and almost dying and saving people. "We're staying here," Amy said, and Rory nodded along. "You go see if the TARDIS is okay. We'll be here."

"Okay," the Doctor said, his eyes darting from the door to the two people in front of it. "Fine. You stay here and be bored out of your minds. Watch the telly." He pointed at a cube-shaped 1960s-era television with a twelve-centimeter screen and a metal coat hanger for an antenna. "I'm going to see what's going on." With that, he pushed past the newlyweds and headed out into the dusk. The streetlamps had just begun to flicker on, and the whole area was cast with an eerie glow. Of course, the Doctor was used to eerie, so this barely phased him. _I'll go repark the TARDIS_, he decided._ I'll be back before anyone suspects a thing._ He did feel bad that the Ponds were so angry at him, but what could he do about it now? They just needed time to cool off.

Skid Row. It was a funny name for an urban Northeastern area of America. However, the surroundings did seem to match the name. Homeless people gathered together on the sidewalks, so the Doctor decided to walk down the road. There weren't any cars around here, anyway; the place seemed too low-maintenance for cars. He saw two women in somewhat provocative dresses prance in the opposite direction on six-inch heels, and he walked faster. The Doctor had enough on his mind, what with the Ponds, River Song, and the recent destruction of the universe. On top of it, that Audrey girl was acting strange, and the TARDIS was possibly broken.

It got dark very quickly here, and the streetlamps gave barely enough light to see down the road. However, it was still lit at Shmendrik's with people continuing to attempt glimpses at the strange blue box. He needed to clear everyone out of the area so he could get in and make sure she was still working properly. Seeing a telephone box disappear would be kind of a shock to these people, whose front-page headlines consisted of a new smoking technique of meat at the butcher's. The Doctor approached the swarms of people, and as he edged to the front of the crowd, he saw the worst thing he ever thought possible.

They were trying to break into the TARDIS. The fire brigade was here, with hammers and other tools to break into things with. The crowd was chanting at the firemen; chants of "Break it! Break it!" rung throughout the congregation. They couldn't see what was inside the TARDIS. That would be really, really bad. So, with cat-like reflexes, the Doctor flung himself into the crater where the firefighters and the TARDIS were. "Don't touch it!" he yelled, and the a hush fell over the mob.

"You're that idiot from earlier," a female voice called out. "That street magician guy."

"Yes, I am," the Doctor replied, thinking quickly. "And this box is part of my act. If you break it, then you'll all have to pay to have it fixed."

"How much'd that be?" a man asked.

"Not cheap. You wouldn't believe how much it would cost."

"You're lying!" someone shouted.

"No, no, it's true. I had a friend back where I grew up who spent millions of pounds to refurbish one of these. That's millions of American dollars we're talking about."

At the sound of the high price, the citizens began to back away from the box. None of them had enough money to pitch in. This place needed a successful billionaire or something. Someone to fund the little disgrace of a town. Even the fire brigade became apprehensive to continue bashing in the box.

"Now, since you've been hanging around for so long, I think you deserve a gift," the Doctor continued, knowing that eventually he would regret this. "Another magic trick from the British street magicians." With this, he retrieved his TARDIS key from his jacket pocket and put it in the lock. Twisting the key, he heard the familiar _click_ of his box unlocking, and he opened the door just enough so he could get in but not enough that any of the people could see inside.

As the Doctor slipped into the TARDIS, he pulled the door shut behind him, and looked for something that could pass as magician-worthy, but not otherworldly. Not a chunk of rock from Astris Twelve, or sand from the beaches of Liliaxis. What would astound the group without making them question him?

He could hear voices mumbling outside of the box. "It's a joke," he could make out someone saying. "He hasn't got anything in there."

"Come out of there, you faking jackass," a man's voice yelled to him. The Doctor recognized it as the voice of that dentist guy with the leather clothes, Orca Something, DDS. "We know you're hiding."

The Doctor then reached into his jacket, and touched his Sonic Screwdriver. In that moment, he realized something very important, a rule that he had heard about but never really followed - less is more.

So the Doctor pulled the Sonic Screwdriver out of his inner jacket pocket, and flung the TARDIS doors open to see the audience's disbelieving faces.

"A flashlight?" the Orca guy said, smirking. "What are you gonna do, glow us to death or something?" The people around him laughed, but this man in leather clothing didn't even chuckle. Instead, he stuck his hand into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handheld canister. It was silver and shiny, and had a little nozzle at the top of it. The dentist kid aimed the nozzle up his nostril, and squirted a sizable amount of whatever gas the canister held into his nose. He leaned back and began to laugh; the gas was obviously nitrous oxide. He was a little insane, but nothing too severe to worry about.

"No," the Doctor replied, his finger resting on the button. "But I _can_ do this." He held up the Screwdriver, hit the button, and all the streetlamps on Third Avenue simultaneously burst. Shards of glass cascaded from the broken lightbulbs to the asphalt, and the whole crowd turned away from the TARDIS.

"...the hell?" Orca or whatever his name was muttered. The Doctor couldn't help feeling proud that he had drawn the attention away from him. These people were no smarter than the Daleks - easily fooled by the smallest of things. The crowd shifted from the box to the now-dark road, and he seized this opportunity to climb back into the TARDIS and shut the door.

"Quickly, quickly, quickly..." He sang a little tune to himself as he approached the console. Pulling the plotter and turning a knob, he stared at the radar. "There!" he said, looking at a perfect-sized space between two buildings six blocks away. It was just right, so the Doctor tried to pull the TARDIS into the crevice. But even the little hop was almost too much for his Type 40, and the short ride was a somewhat bumpy one. He could feel her pain in moving, and because of their symbiotical linking, it hurt him too. _This had better be a good hiding spot_, he thought to himself, stepping out of the box and surveying the area.

It was a perfect place. The shadows crossed over the box in such a way that you could only find it if you were purposely trying to look for it. The navy of his TARDIS blended with the maroon bricks of the adjacent buildings and the grey of the asphalt, and the Doctor loved it. He locked her up once again, whispering to her the whole time. "Don't worry, old girl. I'll be back soon. This is temporary, don't worry."

He decided to not pass by Third Avenue or Shmendrik's; he would get noticed there, too much attention. But the Doctor wasn't familiar with the area, and as a result, he found himself stumbling along 10th Street once again. His TARDIS was still hurting, and as a result, his hearts were beating irregularly. He needed somewhere just to sit down and rest. So he dragged himself along to the nearest lit store and sat against it.

The place was a flower shop, with petunias and ferns lining the windowsill. However, a spot in the middle was empty, as if the centerpiece of the display was missing. A piece of printer paper was Scotch-taped to the window from the inside, reading "Come in and see our amazing new plant, Audrey II". He had never heard of an Audrey II before, and this was in his 900 years of traveling. Curious, the Doctor reached up and pulled on the door. It was locked. It wasn't like he was going to try to bust into the shop - he wasn't _that_ interested in the plant. It was probably just a hoax anyway, just a little moneymaker. So the Doctor sat leaning against the brick wall, listening to some kid's voice pour out of the vent that was a fixture of the building.

Sure, he sang to himself in the shower, but the Doctor knew that this was different, like one of those musicals that he'd seen on Broadway and at the Palladium. This kid was simply singing because there was nothing else to do. "I've given you plant food," he was belting out. "And water to sip. I've given you pot ash, you've given me zip!" If anything, it was entertaining to listen to the boy croon on about various plant techniques. The Doctor wasn't sure who the kid was talking to or what about, mainly because he was focusing on his own well-being.

His hearts were beating more steadily now, thanks to the TARDIS' calm state. However, he was more sure than ever that she needed a break, so he devised a plan for the Ponds and himself. They would try to lie low for a while. Get temporary jobs, make friends with the residents, normal stuff. Just until she was better, though. As soon as his TARDIS was up and running again, they would be out of this dump of a city.

So as the kid in the florist's sang about southern exposure and pinching back hard, whatever that meant, the Doctor got up and pushed himself to the motel where the Ponds were. His vision was slightly blurry and his head hurt, but he carried on. He blocked out the now-distant singing, and reached the motel within fifteen minutes.

And when all was said and done, the Doctor believed that if he had listened to the kid's singing for a little while longer, things would have turned out much differently. Because instead of accidentally walking in on the Ponds having honeymoon sex, he could have helped the kid out. Instead of feeling ashamed that he had disturbed his Companions and sleeping outside, the Doctor would have learned the strange plant's craving for the strangest of things.

Which just happened to be blood.

* * *

**A/N**

**Wow, cliffhangers! I'm glad that I got some fine reads and reviews; they've really been helping me out. Truthfully, you Brochachos/Companions/Seussians/none-of-the-above are some of the best fans an author could ever have. Seriously. It would mean the world to me if I could get some suggestions for future chapters! Thank you to all the people who have already given reviews, and hopefully, I'll get some new ones soon! Again, thanks so much, and I hope to see you soon! Bahai!**

**-C.A.T.**


	3. Chapter 3

_The plant was humongous, and Seymour was as pale as a ghost. "Can we stop now?" he asked it, who kept making kissing sounds at him. "No more, please?" Then the plant opened its mouth, reached down, and swallowed him whole. "Audreyyyyy!" he tried to yell, but it was too late._

Seymour Krelborne screamed, sitting up in his bed. Tears and sweat rolled down his face, and after putting on his glasses, he looked at his Audrey II that sat in the corner of the room. He had placed it there after he discovered it would only eat - get this - blood. Since he didn't know anything about the plant, he put it as far away from him as he could; there was no telling what it would do. Already, the lips on the plant seemed a little redder just from the few drops of blood Seymour had given it. It looked like it was sleeping, but he didn't believe that.

It was 8:37, half an hour after he was supposed to get up. With a sigh, Seymour pulled himself out of the not-comfort of his bed. The calendar on the wall said it was September 22nd, a day just like any other. Seymour took a deep breath in and forced himself to get ready for the upcoming day of work.

After a weary fifteen minutes, Seymour straightened his taupe sweater vest as he stared at himself in the reflection of a mirror hanging on the wall. He looked like a wreck, what with his brown hair sticking up at odd angles and his eyes wrinkled from lack of sleep. As he took a comb to his mess of hair, he heard lip-smacking noises from the corner of the room.

Not again. "This isn't going to become a habit, is it?" he asked Twoey. That was his nickname for the Audrey II, and so far, it was the best idea he had of one. "I can't keep doing this. I'll become anemic, you know. Maybe later, okay, Twoey?" Seymour said, setting down the comb and walking to the stairs. His less-than-comfortable living quarters happened to be in the basement of Mushnik's Skid Row Florist's, which he didn't particularly mind anymore. After all, he did work there, so at least it was a short commute.

He opened the basement door and looked into the sunlit shop. It was pretty bare in the small store, with dying bouquets in the display case and the checkered tile on the floor slowly staining yellow. Seymour reached into the pocket of his brown corduroy pants and pulled out a crumpled five-dollar bill. It wasn't much, but it was enough to buy a cup of oatmeal at Shmendrik's. That was his daily breakfast nowadays - a cup of instant oatmeal for $3.95. Oh well, it was better than nothing.

So ten minutes later, he returned with lukewarm oatmeal in a Styrofoam cup to find he wasn't the only hungry one that had taken residence in the shop. Audrey II seemed to be louder, and even with the door to the basement closed, Seymour could still hear its voiceless begging for his blood. Every few seconds, the lip-smacking noise resonated through his ears, until finally he threw his arms in the air and screamed, "Fine, then!"

The basement door flung open, and Seymour pounded down the stairs to face the plant. "All right!" he yelled, not noticing its smug smile. "If I feed you, will you just shut up?!" Twoey then silenced, either grinning or baring its little jaws for the imminent feeding. Maybe both. Seymour then reached for the knife that sat on his dresser for no apparent reason and, with a grimace, shoved the blade into his finger. Not too hard, but hard enough that he could feel the knife cutting through his skin and into his bloodstream. He removed the knife from his fingertip and, noticing the red stains on the shiny silver blade, set it down carefully on the dresser. He watched the blood flow out of his extremity and dance along his skin until he put it in the vegetable's little mouth and let its lips close around it.

The plant hungrily slurped up the blood, sucking on the finger similar to an infant breastfeeding. Seymour began to feel lightheaded, but he kept watching it suck his finger dry. When it was a pale white, the plant let go, its teeth covered in the red stuff. It seemed to be smiling - at least it wouldn't bother him for the rest of the day. Seymour wrapped his finger in a Band-Aid and carried Twoey in its pot upstairs and into the florist's.

Mr. Mushnik had already arrived, and was hanging his coat up as Seymour stormed into the shop. "Ah, the plant's looking better today," he said, his accent thick as usual. "What was it called again?"

"A-an Audrey II," Seymour stuttered as he placed it in the windowsill. "It's called an Audrey II."

"Well, that Audrey II you've got there is gonna make us famous! That customer that came in yesterday? He has a friend in radio that got you a live interview!"

"Really?!" Seymour was stunned. He was mainly surprised that his boss had accepted the request, even though he knew of Seymour's glossophobia. "When is the interview?" Maybe he'd be able to gain enough courage by then. Or maybe he'd have too little blood to be able to turn down the situation.

"It's today, at 1:00 sharp. Over at the WQHT station." Mr. Mushnik smiled at the boy just enough to seem friendly, and not like someone that would drive people away. That happened all too often with someone like him. "I think the interview's with Mr. Tucker."

Seymour looked up from misting the ferns at the balding man that sat in the room with him. "Mr. Tucker? You mean, the one that hosts the morning broadcasts?"

"That's the one! I'm telling you, boy, this thing is going to make me-" The florist glanced at the young apprentice. "-I mean _us_ rich!" With that, he stood up and grabbed a stack of envelopes that lay on the cash register. "Now, I'm going to mail these out. Audrey should be here any minute, and once she arrives, you can open up. Can you handle that, Seymour?"

"I-I think I can, sir," Seymour nodded, setting down the spray bottle on the counter. "It's not a very hard task, but I'll do my best, sir."

With that, Mr. Mushnik pushed out the door and walked into the mid-morning. Seymour heard his calls of 'Off the street, ya urchins!' and saw the three girls run off down the street, but everything was a blur. "Oh, Twoey," he sighed to the plant, which seemed considerably bigger than it was fifteen minutes ago. "Twoey, I don't know what to do about you. Sure, you'll bring in the customers, but all you seem to eat is blood. _My_ blood. It's not a very healthy diet. Not for my sake, at least. I'm still not sure about you and all. Maybe we'd both be better off if I just didn't feed you."

At that, the plant turned its little head around to look at Seymour. It looked menacing, like a dog just before it starts barking. Its expression seemed to say _Are you serious? Don't be messing with me. _Seymour looked down at his hands, which were still full of color. Maybe he should keep feeding the plant - it wasn't like he was losing too much blood. He wasn't slitting his wrists; he would probably be okay if he kept feeding it, just for now. "Sorry," he corrected himself. "I don't know why I said that."

The door to the shop opened, and a gust of wind rustled through the flowers as Audrey rushed into the little store. "Good morning, Seymour. Is Mr. Mushnik here? Oh God, I hope he isn't. I'm late again!" Shaking off the cold, she took off her coat and hung it up on a wall hook. "The plant looks bigger today. Did you finally figure out what it eats?" Seymour thought back to the times in the past few days when he complained to her that he didn't know what Audrey II ate.

"Actually, I did," Seymour said, smiling at her. Man, she was beautiful, with her long blond hair and her big puppy-dog eyes. Her shiner was still on her face, still purple. He didn't get how someone like her could end up with someone like Orin Scrivello, the sadistic dentist that the whole town was afraid of.

Audrey beamed at her co-worker's pleasant information. "Well then, good for you! Glad to hear you finally found something. Hey, should we open for the day?"

"Sure, I guess." The florist walked to the door and flipped over the sign that said 'open' on one side and 'closed' on the other. Audrey unlocked the cash register, and Mushnik's Skid Row Florist was open for business.

Mr. Mushnik got back no more than five minutes later, clutching a few papers in his coat. "You finally cared enough to show up, Audrey," he said, taking out a roll of tape and taping one of the papers on the window next to the Audrey II advertisement. "If you keep arriving late, I'm going to have no choice but to replace you. Which reminds me..." he tapped on the piece of paper. "I'm hiring someone new to help you out in the shop. With the increase in business and all, we're going to need it." Seymour didn't necessarily agree with this reasoning, but there was no use arguing with his boss, so he just nodded and said, "Okay, Mr. Mushnik."

"Good. Now, I'm going into the back room to grab the new shipment of petunias. Let me know if anyone comes in the shop."

"We will, Mr. Mushnik," Audrey affirmed, touching the bruise under her eye and cringing. The shop owner nodded and cantered into the room behind the curtain. Almost immediately, a passer-by on the street caught Seymour's attention. He was standing outside the window, looking from the plant to the new signs that were posted, a grin on his face. He jumped up and down a couple of times before reaching for the shop door and flinging it open.

Audrey cautiously smiled at the strange man. "Hello, welcome to Mushn-"

"Yes, I read the sign. I'm the Doctor and I'm here to apply for a job." His accent was different; British, Seymour could tell. His fashion sense was odd, and this was coming from a 24-year-old who wore sweater vests. "Who do I speak to about that?"

"Mr. Mushnik's in the back," Audrey said. "He's our boss. I'll go get him." With that, she scurried into the back, leaving Seymour alone with the Doctor.

The silence was awkward, to say the least. "So what's your name?" the Doctor asked.

"I'm Seymour," Seymour said, extending his arm. "Seymour Krelborne. Do people really call you the Doctor?"

"Why wouldn't they?" the Doctor asked, raising his eyebrow - that is, if he had any eyebrows. He seemed to have none, which shocked Seymour a little.

"Just 'the Doctor'? Doctor _who_, exactly?"

"Yes." The Doctor nodded, and shifted his attention from Seymour to Audrey II. "That is an amazing plant! Where'd you get it from?"

"Well, it's kind of a long story," Seymour said, his conscious beginning to drift into his subconscious. He thought back to a week ago, when it all began. "See, I was walking through the wholesale flower district the other day-"

"Shoop-da-doo," the voices in his head sang. He had voices in there, just like anyone else in Skid Row. His happened to be the voices of three black women, singers that barely made it by as urchins.

"-and I came across this place where this old Chinese man was-"

"Shang-da-doo..."

"-he sometimes sells me weird and exotic cuttings-"

"Snip-da-doo..."

"-because, you see, he knows that strange plants are my hobby," he said, and the voices filled in his breath in with "Sha-ba-da-sha-ba-da-doo". Trying to recall what happened next, he stuttered a little. "H-he didn't have anything unusual there that day-"

"Nope-da-doo..."

"-so, I was just gonna walk on by-"

"Good for you..."

"-when suddenly, and without warning, there was this total eclipse of the sun!" Seymour held out his arms for emphasis, remembering the dark that occurred so abruptly. "It got very dark, and there was this strange humming sound, like something from another world." He thought of the sound, the piercing screech of a hum.

"Da-doo!" the voices serenaded once again.

"When the light came back, this weird plant was just sitting there-"

"Oopsy-doo..."

"-just stuck in, among the zinnias-"

"Audrey-two..."

"-and I could have sworn it wasn't there before, but the old Chinese man sold it to me anyway, for a dollar-ninety-five." Seymour came back into the present, his story told, and saw a look of confusion and surprise on the Doctor's face. "That's a really interesting story," he finally said, gazing at Twoey. "There was something from another world, you say?"

"Well, I don't know, it was just an observation," Seymour said, staring at his feet. "It just kinda sounded like that."

"Hmm," the Doctor said, walking over to the plant. "Did you feed it anything?"

"Feed it?!" Seymour looked up from the counter. Should he tell this almost-stranger the truth? He'd be deemed crazy. "No, I haven't fed it. Hey, aren't you supposed to be the one answering questions?"

"Well, yeah, I guess so," the Doctor said, leaning over the vegetable. "What's it called, by the way?"

"It's an Audrey II. That's what I named it."

"_You_ named it?"

"Yeah. I couldn't find it in any of my plant catalogs, so I gave it my own name."

"Audrey must be a very special girl, then," the man murmured, his face so close to the plant that Seymour was surprised Twoey hadn't tried to bite off his face yet. "A special girl, indeed."

Speaking of Audrey, where did she go to? "Be back in a minute. Don't get too close to the plant." He felt weary about leaving this stranger alone in the shop, but he had to find out where Audrey and Mr. Mushnik went.

However, it didn't take too long for Seymour to find the two, because he turned around and immediately found himself colliding with a flat of purple petunias, which went crashing to the ground. Dirt and flowers flew all over the tile, and Seymour guiltily glanced at Mr. Mushnik before dropping to his knees to pick up the mess. "Sorry, Mr. Mushnik, sir," he gasped, pushing the dirt into a pile before sweeping it all into his sweater vest. Looks like he'd have to wash it again.

"Seymour!" the shop owner yelled. "This is valuable merchandise that you wasted!"

Audrey, however, got down on the floor and helped Seymour pick up the flowers that had skidded across the floor. "Don't yell at Seymour, Mr. Mushnik! It wasn't his fault!"

"Ah, whatever," the bitter man said, setting down the flat on the counter. "Now, what is it you wanted to show me, Audrey?"

Without abandoning her job, Audrey pointed to the Doctor, who was in the corner of the room. "There's someone here for a job interview."

Mr. Mushnik looked up at the man who was in the corner, and immediately felt embarrassed. "Oh, I'm sorry you had to see that," he said, beckoning the Doctor closer. "I own this place, and sometimes even I'm afraid to be seen in it. So, how's about that interview?"

"Okay," Seymour heard the man say. "Is there a special interview room or...?" The Doctor sure had high standards. The back room was unusable; it was hard enough to find anything in there already. "Sure," Mr. Mushnik said anyway, surprising both of his workers. "It's right downstairs. I'm sure Seymour doesn't mind."

"Actually, I do!" Seymour called, but by that time, his boss was already leading the Doctor into his employee's living quarters. "I do mind!"

Audrey patted him on the shoulder as they both stood up. "Don't worry, Seymour. I bet your room isn't too messy."

That wasn't what Seymour was worried about, however. He was worried about the knife he had left on the dresser, stained with blood. The Doctor seemed like an observer. He could probably put two and two together.

"Seymour, are you okay?" Audrey asked, snapping the florist back into the present. "You don't look so good."

"No, I'm fine," he replied, dumping the pile of soil and petunias into the trash can. "I'm fine, don't worry."

Audrey seemed to shrug it off, even though on the inside she was worrying about him. As the two were in silence once again, a customer entered the shop. "I'll take care of it," Audrey murmured before turning to the woman and welcoming her to the store. Seymour brushed the remaining dirt off his sweater vest, and realized that he should probably change it. After all, the interview was only three hours away, and he didn't want to look like too much of a wreck. _Before I change, I should probably change Twoey's pot. Don't want it to outgrow that thing._ He walked over to the plant, picked it up, and carried it into the back by its pot.

Seymour pulled the curtain shut behind himself, and reached for a bigger pot from a high shelf. "Look, see?" he whispered to the vegetable, which began to snap wildly at him. "More room to grow. You get to come with me to the interview, but no biting anyone, okay? I don't want to get in trouble because you but some lady's ass off or something." Preparing to be bitten, he lifted the plant out of the smaller pot and placed it in the bigger one. He poured the dirt into the pot with Twoey, and added some more potting soil for good measure. Keeping an eye on the plant, Seymour reached for the watering can. "This is serious, Twoey. My life is beginning now. I don't want you screwing things up. Got it?"

The plant nodded, which Seymour took as a 'yes'. "Good, then. Here, have some water." He tipped the can ever so slightly so the water poured out onto the not-so-little Twoey. The water was being sucked in as soon as it hit the ground, which meant that the thing was thirsty. Most likely hungry, too. But Seymour wasn't ready to feed it yet. Maybe he would tonight, but not now. With a grunt, he picked up the bigger pot with Twoey in it and lugged the whole thing back into the main shop.

As he adjusted the surrounding plants in the display to fit Audrey II's new pot, Mr. Mushnik and the man came back up the stairs. "Seymour, Audrey? I need to talk to you two for a moment," the owner of the florist's said to the two employees. Audrey excused herself from helping the customer decide between daisies and foxgloves and walked over to him. Seymour put down a fern and met the three others by the cash register. "Guys, this is your new coworker. He's called the Doctor. I expect you to show him the ropes, Seymour, and teach him what he needs to know."

The Doctor beamed at them, but Seymour was feeling angered. "Wait, why me?" he asked.

"You've been with me longest, and I trust you with this. Don't let me down, okay?" Mr. Mushnik had an expression on his face like he didn't want to deal with any questions.

"I-I won't, sir," Seymour replied. First the fight between him and Audrey's boyfriend, then Twoey and the whole blood thing, and now a person to train. Great. Just great.

* * *

**A/N**

**And the worlds collide! So sorry I haven't updated, but with our new play of the year and end-of-semester tests approaching, I haven't had much time. I have plenty more ideas for how to move the story forward, but maybe you guys have some more ideas? I would really appreciate them. So if I see you... people again before Christmas break, I'll see you soon, and if I don't, Merry Christmas! Happy Hanukkah! Hooray for Winter Solstice! Happy whatever winter holiday you celebrate! See you guys soon!**

**-C.A.T.**


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